DEMOCRATIC ANTICONSTITUTIONAL MEETING

At a meeting of the Democratic delegates representing the several wards of the city of Milwaukee, held at the Common Council Room, April 5, to nominate city officers for the ensuing election, Solomon Juneau was called to the chair, and J. B. Allen appointed secretary.

The following delegates appeared and took their seats:

First Ward-Solomon, Juneau, Dan'l Wells Jr., J. B. Martin.
Second Ward-Byron Kilbourn, C. W. Schwarts, J. A. Phelps.
Third Ward-J. B. Allen, Frank Davlin, J. Goggin.

Fourth Ward-J. L. Doran, Patrick Gallagher, Moses Kneeland.
Fifth Ward-J. B. Zander, J. G. Barr, N. L. Herriman.

Here is a specimen of that "shrewdness" which is the boast of Mr. Noonan that can in the twinkling of an eye transform those old wheel-horses of the Whig party, Phelps, Goggin, and Zander, into "good enough Democrats" to serve the purpose of delegates to a "Democratic Anticonstitutional Convention." On the same ticket nominated at this "Democratic" convention was run the aldermen for the several wards, composed of Whigs and Democrats indiscriminately, the whole headed "Democratic Ticket."

Mr. Noonan repels as a falsehood the imputation that he is a "bank Democrat," and says, "There is no spirit of bankism, conservatism, or political treachery abroad here out of the knot of corruptionists and blacklegs that are now grieving the hardest and crying the loudest over the defeat the constitution recently met. with." As far as Mr. Noonan is concerned, this may be true. His connection with the wildcat banks of Michigan may have been to illustrate the evils of the system in his own person, like the drunkard who traveled with the temperance lecturer, to give specimens of the revolting degradation of drunkenness. Thus Mr. Noonan, when he started the Berrien County Bank, and as cashier of that institution made his monthly statements of its condition under oath, perhaps only intended to show how dangerous to the interests of the people is a reliance upon such security for the solvency of the bills of a banking institution. At all events, when at the end of some six or seven months the concern was closed up and the receiver found three red cents and no more as the cash capital, with some fifty thousand dollars in individual notes, which were sold under the hammer for less than one hundred dollars, and these the whole assets of the bank, while forty or fifty thousand dollars of its bills were afloat in the hands of the industrious people of the neighborhood, they felt a conviction of the evils of banking which no argument without the illustration could possibly have produced.

The close of this characteristic letter of our worthy postmaster is peculiarly complimentary to the Democratic party of the territory in general. The convention, which was composed almost entirely of

delegates chosen by the suffrages of the party in the several counties of the territory, he mentions in the following flattering style: "It convened in disorder and ill-humor, sat in confusion, and adjourned in disgrace." Why were the people so little aware of their incapacity to select their agents? Perhaps, since Mr. Noonan has "shown them up," they will be more modest in the future and allow him to select for them the delegates to the next convention; or what would be just as well, let him and General King make a constitution for the new state and pass it at a mass meeting convened in the back room of the postoffice. The fourteen thousand Democrats who voted for the rejected constitution must be convinced by the arguments of Mr. Noonan that as "corruptionists” and “blacklegs" they have no right to interfere in matters concerning the welfare of the body politic.

In conclusion, we would barely suggest to Mr. Noonan to be careful hereafter and not let his utter malignity of heart so far overmaster his usual cunning as to attack on mere suspicion one so preeminently entitled to the respect and gratitude of the Democratic party and whose position, morally and socially, necessarily gives him a deserved influence in the community where he resides. To talk of gratitude I know would be dealing in the "dead languages" to Noonan. If a spark of that virtue ever lit up a remote corner of his heart it was long since quenched in the bitter waters of envy and malice, which are constantly welling up from the depths of a soul incapable of appreciating anything better than its own deformity. To bedaub with dirty epithets a man whose disinterested efforts and those of his family to sustain him when overwhelmed with a sea of popular indignation were the only acts of a long and useful life which ever cast a shade of suspicion upon his political character is quite consistent with Mr. Noonan's depravity of heart, but not done with his usual "shrewdness." It shows how the truths stated in my letter to the Free Press annoy him, but it does not help his case.

If he should deem it expedient to rewrite his letter, since he knows the author of the one to which he attempted a reply, he will find me always ready.

JOHN A. BROWN

SELECTIONS FROM THE LANCASTER WISCONSIN HERALD

A BALLAD OF THE CONVENTION

[December 31, 1846]

It was a thing unthought of by our sires.

To flash intelligence along on wires;

But lightning now has stooped to carrying mails:
Yet, like all other agents, sometimes fails.

So failed our great convention, met at Madison.
Where Moses threw his cane at one Magone;
Where Hunkers, Tadpoles, Crawfish, took their pay,
Then stooped to steal themselves four bits a day!
There rogues for bankrupts fixed a cunning plan
To keep their gain and gain whate'er they can,
To make the wife change places with her lord
And consummate a general scheme of fraud.
They knocked all paper currency "to fits";
Then paid their board off with certificates!
Refused to make our boundary the St. Croix,
And docked the state one member to annoy.
This extra service of the state to pay
They vote themselves an extra half per day,
Place their abortive constitution on a hearse
Then, like a school of cuttlefish, disperse.
As at the rising of some radiant star,
Whose trembling rays glad millions hail afar,
Dense fogs from swamps and stagnant fens arise
And hide its welcome radiance from their eyes;
So has the mist of vaporing demagogues
Obscured Wisconsin in its nauseous fogs.

"The world," cries one, "is too much governed,
or has been";

'Tis not as true as that the world drinks too much gin!
When shall we see triumphant virtue's cause?

An honest constitution? Vigorous laws?

When drunken blacklegs leave our public halls!

When the vile dynasty of rowdies falls!

THE BOUNDARIES OF WISCONSIN
[January 9, 1847]

Looking at the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 which, unrepealed, has the full force of constitutional law, it is as plain as daylight that Wisconsin is about to be most flagrantly robbed of a large share of her rightful domain. The ordinance provides that "if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the said (Northwest) Territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan." It is plain that the ordinance means this: that if Congress should ever form a state or two states in the Northwest Territory, north of Illinois, the southern boundary of the state or states so formed shall be the east and west line drawn not north of, but through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan. Congress is now about to form a state (Wisconsin) north of said east and west line. When Congress admitted Illinois into the Union with her present northern boundary it was with the express understanding and expectation that her northern boundary would be altered-carried south-whenever Congress should find it expedient to form either one or two states north of Illinois. That contingency has occurred, and the northern boundary of Illinois is now subject to be altered-to be removed to said east and west line. Those fourteen counties in Illinois north of said line came under the jurisdiction of Illinois with a proviso, on a condition, and for a period of time which was to terminate whenever Congress deemed it expedient to form a state north of Illinois; whenever a state should be thus formed north of Illinois they were to constitute a part of it. When Congress last winter provided for admitting a state north of Illinois, every free inhabitant north of said east and west line became ipso facto absolved from all allegiance to Illinois. This is the plain English of it. These are our rights-rights which ought to be manfully maintained, but which have been most shamefully abandoned. But let us see what our delegates have done. Have they, as the act of Congress of last winter authorized, embraced even within the northern limits of Wisconsin all the waters of the St. Croix, a river destined hereafter to connect an immense trade between Lake Superior and the Mississippi? Not at all. A fine strip of territory has there been sacrificedbartered away-by the convention. Thus Wisconsin is robbed of land at both ends, besides having her pockets picked!

DEFECTS OF THE CONSTITUTION

[January 23, 1847]

Among the numerous defects in this instrument may be noticed the article concerning the judiciary. The judges, five in number, are to be elected, each in his own district, and yet each can serve in the district which elected him but one year in five. By the operation of this fundamental law the people of one district will elect judges for the others four-fifths of the time! We supposed the object of elections was to let the people choose their own officers. But the convention have decreed, if the people sanction it, that one portion of the state shall elect an important officer for other portions. Would it not be equally just for one county to elect other officers for other counties as well as judges? Suppose Grant County were to elect a judge of probate, sheriff, commissioners, etc., for Iowa, and Iowa for Dane, and Dane for Milwaukee, and Milwaukee for Grant, etc. Would it not be equally just? Yet who would bear such an encroachment upon their rights of franchise? But before they vote for the adoption of the present constitution let them reflect that if they do so they vote for an instrument that will authorize other portions of the state to elect their judges for them for four years out of five.

This uncouth instrument is impracticable on other accounts. What lawyer who is competent to fill the bench does not make more at the bar than his salary will be as judge? Such men will not accept of a judgeship, break up their present lucrative practice, and be absent from home most of the time for four years out of five, in which time not only their practice at the bar is lost, but on account of their necessary absence their domestic affairs must be neglected, and if they have families, as most have, or ought to have, they can hardly visit them, much less enjoy their society four-fifths of the time. And at the end of the term-if not "addressed" out of office before should they not be reëlected-which they can hardly expect to be if rotation in office is to be kept up-they find themselves out of office, out of business, their domestic affairs deranged or in ruin, and their families mere strangers. Who, we say, that is competent, will take a judgeship under such circumstances?

Those who have neither talent nor learning to fill the bench. honorably to themselves and usefully to the people and who of course have but little or no practice no doubt would jump at such an election. But as we take it for granted that if a lawyer has talents to qualify him for a judge he has talents to command a practice, which